


Sam's Turn

by minkmix



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Violence, gender swap, sam goes girl, there is always a curse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2019-06-26 19:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15670107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkmix/pseuds/minkmix
Summary: This is an off from: Isochronismhttps://archiveofourown.org/works/15435531/chapters/35828664





	1. Chapter 1

He pushed his hand up under his shirt, feeling the flat hard muscle of his stomach and the defined line of the bone of his hip.

Sam didn't usually admit pain, especially to himself. Like most men, he could handle it. Pain for guys was something to ignore until it brought them down. New pain, however was prime education. It was valuable, a thing to be catalogued and endured. Despite the thousand inexplicable and mysterious ways he had come to interpret his own body's discomfort, age and the hazards of life as he now knew it had schooled him well for the unexpected. There would always be something new to hurt in some fresh and baffling way. But this pain wasn't a thing like what he had come never to expect.

He did, however, have a few logical if unsettling theories.

It was completely inward. Slow and subtle. At times barely an afterthought, easily confused with the ordinary complaint of a skipped breakfast. Sometimes it intensified, a gnawing ache that traveled low into his thighs and made him break out in a nervous sweat. Still, this pain he could rationalize to himself. Overexertion. Exhaustion. A midnight scuffle the morning after. It felt comparable.

Sam was never a great believer in ignoring something until it went away but there was a first time for everything. He should have told his brother as soon as he suspected but he didn’t want Dean to start watching him. He didn’t want some wordless nightly lock down inside one of their motel rooms. Most especially, he didn’t want it to happen at all. Besides, there was the slim chance he could be wrong. He’d searched all over his body and had not found even a trace of the straight edged dark blue that had punished his brother only a month before.

Until he knew for sure, he could deny and he could distract himself. Unconsciously he passed his hand faintly over his lower belly, shutting his eyes against the glass window of the Impala.

They had work to do anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"You know who you look like?"

Her eyes were wide, the strange cast to her tell tale artificial blued contacts as plastic as the red cup of the beer she had tilted thoughtfully against her forehead.

Sam wondered how many more times he could keep taking his hands in and out of his pockets. He'd found a hole in the right side. He could get his entire middle finger through it and flip anyone off without them even knowing.

"N-No?" Sam answered because he had no idea how to really answer that question.

"You look like this guy I met last year at the Winter Snow Carnival at the Theta house!" She smiled up at the small group that surrounded them in semi rapt attention. "Are you from Theta House?"

"U-Uh--"

"Ya hear that Sam?"

The back of Dean's hand whipped hard into that spot right below his diaphragm that always emptied his lungs almost to the point where he started seeing white lights.

"You look like a guy she banged."

"Y-yeah, I h-heard."

Dean tipped back his bottled beer and grinned at her. Sam wondered where his brother scored an actual glass beverage in a sea of foam cups and juice laced with grain alcohol.

"Who do I look like?" Dean asked her.

She considered him for a second before pointing at him in accomplishment.

"You look like that guy in that movie!"

"Oh yeah?" Dean liked that. "What movie?"

"Caddyshack!"

Sam smiled behind his own plastic cup, slipping back more of the cheap warm foamy beer. Although he knew his brother’s fondness for the cinematic piece, he was hard pressed to guess which of the various cast of mostly heinous characters had reminded this girl of his brother. It was fun to watch Dean think about it though.

For a little while.

It was easy to back away, melt into the crowd even though his stature didn’t always let him do so gracefully. It wasn’t too late but the mob was already half way to plowed. The sound of laughter and screaming punctuated by car horns in the Fraternity house’s opposite parking lot churned as steady as a locomotive. It was one of those houses that had just been converted from a dorm so it didn’t have all those classic details Sam thought of when he thought about them at all.

The trashed front yard with a lingerie dressed mannequin. The Greek letters hanging proudly over the door. Beer cans lining the porch rails. All that stuff he’d probably absorbed from seeing Animal House one too many times. Ah, now Eric 'Otter' Stratton… now that was a movie guy Sam could see some of his brother in. Kind of.

The back yard was nothing more but packed dirt with some grass clinging on around the edges. There was a volley ball net set up almost in the middle of the throng but its use was more for the tangle of blinking Christmas lights that someone had thought to decorate with.

Automatically apologizing to someone who almost knocked him over, he swore under his breath when he felt an entire cup of tepid beer slosh over onto the front of his shirt. Sighing, he knew he’d now not only have to taste the Busch Light or whatever crap these kids had bought by the keg full, but he was going to have to freaking reek like it too.

Looking around he spotted his brother still in conversation with the girl with the fake blue eyes and a small group of her cohorts. It was a little strange, his brother was on his way to pushing thirty but he still had more to say to these people than Sam ever had.

It didn’t really bother him. It was something he’d always found unpleasant and something he couldn’t even force. Listening to small talk and responding to it in kind was one thing, but basing an entire evening on the same premise of bullshit made only slightly more tolerable by the addition of an economical buzz was quite another.

The sky above was a weird shade of blue. The sun had gone down about half an hour ago but it left a dull glow, reflecting off the sparse long rows of clouds that settled just above the tree line. Sam hadn’t noticed before but the moon was out. The perfect sharp sliver hung bright white but he could still make out the full black circle that continued around the hidden circumference.

He hadn’t realized he was staring until he got into someone’s way again.

Sam watched the two girls stagger away wobbling in their heels, and heard somewhere above all the jumbled noise his brother’s laughter clear and unhindered. They had been on the campus for a week. Sam had thought at first it would be hard to find at least two parties a day to get lost in to start talking to the people they needed the most, but he found that if the state school lacked anything it wasn’t liquor stores and kids with fake IDS. The crowd surged back closer to the house as some music came on, loud enough for a small concert. Sam stepped back to avoid the stream of traffic trying to get back through the sliding doors. The air was electric with voices and some unflagging energy fueled by the aluminum kegs lined up on the lawn’s edge.

The students attending sure didn’t act like three murders had occurred here in as many months.

Weird mix too. An 18 year freshman girl was first. The early rush of morning classes found her laying wide eyed in the grass out in the middle of the science quad. A third year grad student came next. A security cop found him slumped over in his car in an empty parking lot at about sundown. The last was a member of the janitorial staff, a guy in his 50’s out in the gymnasium after hours on a weekend.

It was the date and times that had brought them here. It was still too soon to separate the sometimes fine line between what human hands could do in the dark just as well as their counterparts. They’d covered just about every inch of campus so far, but all they’d managed to accomplish was hitting every event where a keg was tapped. Dean hadn’t spent one night back in their motel room yet. Sam didn’t mind at all. He enjoyed the privacy as much as he did the silence he could spend for as many hours unbroken as he wanted. Even if half the time he had been spending it in bed.

It was easier to hide it all that way anyway. An indefinable lethargic daze. Too sleepy to read. Too worn out to get any real rest. He wondered if he should use one of his private mornings to go see a doctor.

“Nice tat.”

“Excuse me?” Sam was always surprised when girls came out of nowhere to address him. Even the really drunk ones.

“Line art is so huge this year, but I like yours, it’s really simple and understated like a – like a Klee without the cats!”

Sam found himself smiling back her. An art major getting some good use out of her 101 famous artists rolodex. But Paul Klee aside, he had no idea what she was talking about.

“My tat?”

“Like where you put it too.” She shifted on the stairs that made her almost eye to eye with him. “That must have hurt like hell.” She gestured faintly and Sam's hand flew up confused and hesitant.

"Back of the neck?" She supplied helpfully.

Sam instantly felt the area, breaking out into a sheepish grin.

"Oh, uh, right." He shifted uncomfortably with a laugh. "Ya know, forgot it was even there."

Sam’s gaze wandered back to the moon and wondered if this girl was just seeing things or some old scar he’d forgotten about that looked like it had all been done on purpose. Some of them turned out that way, all that pain healed into a shape that was almost something agreeable. It had been exactly a month since he’d seen the moon looking like that.

And for some reason the sight of it was making him sick to his stomach.

Chucking the plastic cup sideways into an over flowing trash bin, Sam moved through the crowd, finding the relative sanctuary of the back staircase that went to the house’s upper floors. He wanted a bathroom and a sink with flowing water. He wanted a brief moment away from cigarette smoke and the underlying scent of pot.

He felt the sudden burning need to be completely alone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sam knew he was going to be sick.

The cold sweat and that knowledge that he had to find someplace to do it in relative privacy taking over every other thought in his head. The stall banged shut behind him and he felt himself stutter to his knees, almost as if he’d stepped through the floor, or that sick sensation when you expect one step too many on your way upwards.

Then suddenly two things happened at once.

That nagging pain that had been eating away at his edges for about a week suddenly swelled full and strong right at the base of his belly. It was so unexpected, Sam doubled over and clutched at it thinking somewhere in the back of his mind of all the stories he’d heard about girls at these parties picking up date rape drugs. Figured he’d picked up the wrong beer and now he was going to be drugged without the rape part.

But then right after that, he felt all his limbs, all his muscles all his bone and everything in between spasm violently. It was so painful and abrupt, that he cried out and fell up against the wall, his hands clutching down hard over the tops of his thighs just to keep himself upright.

A shock of lightheadedness that Sam thought for sure meant his head was about to send him on another trip again sent him careening into the stall wall again. He clutched his head waiting for a vision to appear right here with the toilet, but when it passed he was kneeling on the hard uneven tiles of the floor.

He grasped for the toilet seat.

The taste of cheap beer was no better the second time around and he felt his head start to throb as soon as his panting was over. Fumbling for a wad of tissue to wipe across his mouth he froze when he saw his arm reaching out for it. More importantly, it was his jacket sleeve and he was moving it, but that was in no way, his arm. Staring at the white delicate hand that emerged from the bottom of the sleeve, he blinked at it.

The stall door opened up behind him.

“Clean up in three!“ A guy dressed like a J. Crew ad called out like the nonevent it must have been. “There’s some chick puking in the guy’s can!”

A chick. Sam had been mistaken for a few things before but a woman had never been one of them.

So this was it. It had happened. Squeezing his eyes shut, he quietly called himself every name for stupid he could think. He should have stuck to the motel. He should have warned Dean. He never thought it would happen this quickly.

Sam urgently felt at the back of his neck where the girl had claimed to have seen a tat. He couldn’t feel it but he knew it was there. Straight and long, up into his hair, down the base of his skull and down the back of his neck. If he looked in a mirror he bet he’d see it was a nice dark blue.

Lower jaw trembling, he realized he had been marked all along too. It just took a few cycles around for when it had decided to hit. Maybe it just liked taking its time. Maybe that was the only way it worked. Sam gripped the stiff roll of toilet paper on its ring and did his best with his new found lack of power to crush it. He managed a nice dent. Whatever mystical logistics he’d missed, it really didn’t matter much at this point.

A girl with a pony tail ducked her head in and gave Sam the once over.

She shouted back over her shoulder. “You guys are the assholes that let in the highschool townies!”

The guy who had walked in on him in the first place came back into view and decided to address Sam directly as if he were a real live person this time.

“You from the highschool?” His baseball cap was on backwards, words slurred just enough to pass for being probably the most sober person within the nearest square mile. “Who you come with?”

Sam used his elbow to right himself up from the toilet bowl, trying not to think about the floor he was sitting on or anything else that might have contaminated his immediate vicinity. His brother’s name was on his lips but he knew if Dean was still even out there and not half way to some sorority girl’s room, he might not be the one to mention. Being informed that some girl who knew his name was yakking in the bathroom might just send Dean running in the opposite direction.

“Oh man.”

The tone in the guy’s voice made Sam look up at him in alarm. He was looking down at Sam’s jeans. His really big jeans. Spreading his thighs a little he saw the source of the Frat boy’s horror. The denim was almost black in the crotch of his pants, seeping slowly out in a circle down his thighs.

He was bleeding.

Sam stumbled to his feet, realizing he had to hold his jeans up to keep them from falling down. The bathroom door he had been able to look over the top of was now over his head. He swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut for a second trying to keep his shit together long enough to find his phone.

He’d call his brother. That was all he had to do right now. As soon as that was done he would figure out what to do next.

“Maybe you should take her to your dorm?” The guy suggested quickly to the girl standing next to him.

“Do I look like a fucking babysitter?”

The phone was ringing in that slow steady ring. Sam noticed his phone felt larger, harder to hold.

“No, but you look like a girl that can take this fuckin’ townie outta here and dump her ass before the cops come and fuckin’ bust us with some 12 year old chick around ODing on—“

“She’s not 12 you dumbass, she’s about uh, what... 16?” The girl with the pony tail gave Sam a look. “You’re about 16 right?”

"I...I..." A shaking stutter was all he could manage. Sam almost told them he was turning 24 soon and he was not only older than both of them, he was—

“Hey, what’s wrong with her?”

Sam groaned and sank back down into the corner of the stall.

Hey, you’ve reached Dean, I can’t talk right now so leave a message and I’ll hit ya back.

Sam heard the tone sound to prompt him to leave a message but when he started talking he couldn’t make any sense of his voice. He used it anyway trying to force the high wavering noise coming from his throat into words that made sense.

“Dean, Dean it’s me, I think I’m in trouble, I’m— “ Shit, he didn’t even know what building he was in. He looked back up at the two students that were standing over him. “Wh-what, building is this?”

Unfortunately, the two students were too busy in the middle of their own conversation as to what to do with what they found ill in their midst.

Sam took a deep breath, aware that the voice mail was still recording him just sitting there silent on the line. He thumbed it off, squeezing the metal in his sweaty palm and willing it to start ringing back right away. Sam started wondering what exactly he should do next that didn’t involve sitting for one second longer on a disgusting bathroom floor, but it turned out the Frat boy had already come up with a plan.

“Look, just take her downstairs,” He despondently checked the low level of beer in his cup. “There’s no way she’s sleeping it off in here. And um, not my room ok? I don’t want that on my sheets.”

Hands were pulling him up, the pain in his middle grinding like glass, his vision flashing white and bright. There was some vague panic that his well being was now under the jurisdiction of two wasted teenagers that thought he was some problem to get rid of.

“Come on townie, that’s right, this way, you’re doing great.“ The girl with the pony tail mumbled. “Just don’t puke on me or I’ll let you pass out on the sidewalk.”

“W-Wait—“ Sam struggled, tripping over his clothes, his jacket falling off one shoulder and slipping onto the ground.

“I got it. I got it.” The girl said leaning down to scoop it up. “Geeze, where the hell did you get these clothes?”

Sam staggered to keep up with her, her grip under his elbow rock solid. She obviously wanted her errand over and done with so she could get back to the party at large. He had no shoes, just socks, his jeans were only covering him because he’d grabbed two handfuls of the waist and was holding them up like his life depended on it. The t-shirt he had on was now baring one of his shoulders. A very thin slight shoulder.

“Wait-wait please just stop a second—“ Sam stopped his handler by halting at the top of the flight of stairs. “I--I have to find my brother.”

She looked hopeful for a moment. Her tedious task maybe not necessary at all.

“What’s his name?”

“Dean-Dean Winchester, we came here together, he—“

Her eyebrow went up in vague recognition. “Is he Sigma Alpha?”

“No-No, he was just out back, if I could just look for him-aH--“ Sam felt the polished tile floor under his knees again as the pain grinded sideways across his pelvis.

“Damn, hon, you got it bad.” She noted gesturing to his soaked jeans. “I think you just need to go home. Do you- do you want me to drive you home?”

“Don’t-don’t live here—“

“Okay, look, I don’t know, maybe you can call your mom or something okay?”

Sam felt himself being jerked down the steps, unable to even twist his arm out of a grip that didn’t seem like much at all.

The hallway through the front double doors was fully mirrored on either side.

Sam felt his mouth drop open when he saw the thin gawky girl being dragged behind the well shaped co-ed in the jean shorts and halter top. His hair seemed longer but that was only because he was so much shorter, skinny, his shocked face nothing that he recognized, but his eyes, his eyes were exactly the same.

It made sense that they had assumed he was some party crasher from one of the local high schools. He looked young and confused. And bleeding. Fumbling with his jacket, he tried to wrap it around his waist to cover it up. His thoughts flashed to when he had been staring at his brother in that shower. The moment he knew that the strange woman he’d found confused and delirious wasn’t any woman at all.

They were suddenly going down another hallway and the girl was fumbling with some keys to open up a room.

“Hang out in here for a while.” She told him curtly, readjusting her hair in a long mirror and checking her teeth. “It’s totally cool. I’ve got a key.”

Sam looked around the cluttered room uncertainly. There were two single beds along either wall but the place didn’t look like it was a girl’s domain. It was too stark and too undecorated. The sheets blue and brown. The laundry in a half hearted folded stack on the desk instead of put away.

“It’s my boyfriend’s room.” She explained as she kicked open a small half fridge. “Girl’s aren’t really supposed to crash here but, ya know.”

Sam felt himself nodding, the damp discomfort between his legs forcing him to think how he wanted nothing more than to just sit down somewhere but at the same time, not sit anywhere at all.

“Here.” She handed Sam the tall thin bottle she’d retrieved out of the fridge. “You look like you could use a little.”

“Thanks.” Sam mumbled.

“You remind me of my cousin.” The girl said somewhat randomly. “I’d kill her ass if she ever showed up at a Theta party, but you know.”

It tasted like drinking pure mouthwash. Sam choked down the first swallow unsure of what exactly it was that he had just done. Looking at the bottle for a label he didn’t see one.

“It’s my own little concoction.” She smiled, slipping out of her shorts and digging through the open closet for something else. “Peppermint schnapps, Goldschalger and Sambuca.”

Sam shrugged and took another swig. If he had ever had a time when he could use a drink this would definitely be one of them.

“Look, there’s only 20 more minutes before all the jello shots are gone and I’m not missing it,” She swung open a sliding door that revealed a small bathroom in the corner of the room. “Take a shower, and um, here…”

Digging back in the closet, she tossed out a few pieces of clothing out on the unmade bed.

“You can have those. I never wear them anyway.”

Sam looked down at the clothes and then back up at the swaying girl who had way more to drink than Sam realized.

“I’ll drive you later okay? Just-just hang out here. Listen to music. Whatever.” She zipped up some jeans she found to wear instead and checked her face in the mirror again. “If I see your brother Jean I’ll let him know you’re around.”

And just like that, Sam was left standing alone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bathroom was cramped.

He knew this was a perfect opportunity to make a break for it but the promise of a shower and some different clothes was too powerful to pass over. He’d gone through some real moments of scuzz in his lifetime and waited for more days than he could comfortably admit in the same digs, but this… this was too much for even another fucking minute.

More than a little dizzy, he undressed slowly and took in the long willowy limbs he now owned. He had to reach up to hang his clothes on the door hook. He had to get up on his toes just to get the water on in the shower. Pulling up his hair with trembling hands he used the mirrors to get a good look at what he could only before feel for with his finger tips. There it was.

A straight blue line.

As he wet his hair and watched the run of red darken the water around the drain he started to feel more and more at unease. If Dean hadn’t called him back by the time he was dried and clothed, he had to find the car and just get the hell out of here. He had to arm himself and then get back to the motel. Sam looked down the length of his leg, slim and hairless. He weighed and dropped the bare suggestion of breasts that sat on his chest. With the palm of his hand he smoothed over the light brown hair between his legs, feeling further at the slick soft flesh beneath. The shower seemed to tilt on its side for a moment, his hands going out onto either side of the tile to steady himself.

Maybe Dean never even had to know about any of this. He could just text him that he was taking off for a few days. Maybe Sam could wait like Dean had and let this all blow over— Crouching down, he pressed his forearm against his belly, willing the twisting muscle inside his flesh to settle long enough for him to accomplish at least this task of showering.

When he finally turned the hot water off he found a somewhat clean looking towel and quickly went looking for the clothes the girl had left behind. Looking back in her closet he quickly found a lavender zipped bag of maxipads and to his happy disbelief an unopened plastic package of women’s underwear. Tearing it open he pulled it on hoping that its shape would be more conducive to keeping one of those pads on then those boxers he’d observed his brother attempt to deal with.

He quickly put on the faded jeans that were a little long at the bottoms and a little loose at his waist until he realized they were supposed to fit around hips instead of what he considered his middle. The shirt was some white long sleeved thing that had the State School logo down the middle. He found some socks and a ratty old pair of sneakers that fit him almost perfectly. Finally feeling clean, his jacket reeked even worse when he picked it up off the chair he’d left it on. He hopefully checked his phone. No messages.

Another wave of dizziness made him sit down hard on the bed. Looking disdainfully at the bottle he had drank almost half of he wondered why the hell he had done it in the first place. The stuff was probably 100% proof. Laying back on the mashed pillow he groaned as the room slid and slightly rotated above him.

Since when had booze ever hit him like this?

“Since you became a 10 pound 16 year old girl.” He grumbled to himself.

It felt good to just lay still for a moment. His immediate needs taken care of. The party thumping on the other side of the wall and seemingly far away.

It didn’t take much to lull him into something close to slumber.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He wasn’t sure why he woke up.

The guy was sitting on the opposite side of the room. The one that had found him puking and looking a lot less like a J. Crew ad than Sam remembered. He wasn’t doing anything but just sitting there with a beer bottle in his hand and staring in Sam‘s direction.

Sam sat up on his elbows and studied him back. He didn’t like the looks of this. He didn’t like the looks of this at all.

“Your girlfriend—“ Sam stopped, realizing he knew none of these people’s names. ”…she-she loaned me some clothes.”

The weight of him surprised Sam. He was so accustomed to his body’s ability to move, to lift, to avoid and push…. His form now did almost nothing at all. The weight might have surprised him, but the hands drunkenly groping between his legs and grabbing painfully at the hair at the base of his neck just made him angry. But he knew that size wasn’t the only thing that made any difference. He hadn’t always been who he was. In both senses of the term.

The sharp blow he struck up and under the guy’s chin took him completely off guard. The subsequent knee that came up between his legs with the flat of Sam’s fist jamming down into the solar plexus did the rest of the trick. Sam got out from underneath him as he rolled over to try to breathe and clutch himself at the same time. Rolling on top of him, Sam slipped out the belt the guy had already undone and made a quick slip knot around one of his wrists with the buckle. Looking around quickly, he spotted a low laying pipe that ran down the length of the floor. Tossing the other end of the heavy belt buckle over the bed’s side, he met it as he slipped under the bed frame, lashing it to the bolted duct.

Bracing his sneakers against the wall, he leaned back to tug at it a few times to test it. The knot didn’t need much muscle behind it to make it harder to get out of than a Chinese finger trap if you didn’t know your stuff. Sam figured, this guy wouldn’t get himself free until his jello shot girlfriend found him there.

Backing out from under the bed, Sam appreciated how fast he could move like this. The spaces he could suddenly use without restriction. The lightness to his movements that he surely had once as a kid but had long since forgotten.

When he stood he stumbled a little when all the blood rushed back to his head. He didn’t feel quite so sluggish anymore though. Whatever he drank left him feeling almost like laughing. He heard himself make an embarrassing squeaky sound that resembled some kind of amusement.

“What- what the fuck?”

The guy had just kind of figured out that his hand was trapped in some way or another. He pulled on it in a vague confused way that the inebriated did. Sam slipped his hand over the car keys that were sitting by the door. Shrugging his huge jacket on, he regretfully kissed the rest of his clothes goodbye.

“What color is your pick up?” You didn’t need any special cognitive perception to know that this guy’s ride was something that could haul and tow in four wheel drive.

“Huh?”

“Your pick up?” Sam asked again impatiently. “Red, blue, green?”

“It’s black.”

“Figures.”

Sam closed the door behind him twisting and breaking the room key off in the lock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time he had gotten out into the back parking lot he didn’t say a word to the curious party goers as he climbed up into the driver’s seat of the 4x4 truck. It took a moment for him to figure out how to get the seat up as far forward as it could go.

As the engine started, he considered trying Dean’s phone one more time. Sam wasn’t quite sure what exactly he should say. I’m leaving town. Call you back in a few days. I’m going to be on the road. Be in touch as soon as I can.

None of it was something Dean would buy. Especially with this voice.

He was interrupted by of all people, the pony tail girl who had not only donated her clothes, but unknowingly, her sneakers and some underpants too. She pounded on the window twice. Since he was wearing her drawers he figured he might as well have the decency to roll it down.

“What the hell are you doin’ in Josh’s truck?”

Sam shifted the giant truck’s gears so he could safely go in reverse and not mow down half the student population that had a cumulative blood alcohol level of a swimming pool of malt liquor. Speaking of alcohol levels, Sam winced when he heard what sounded like a parking meter go down, loud and unwillingly under the back of the pickup’s flat bed. He leaned out the window to get a better look.

Nope, it was a stop sign.

“Uh,” Sam tried to smile at the shocked face of his benefactress who was standing speechless on the corner. “He said I could borrow it?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

It turned out he’d hit a stop sign and wedged the bottom of the truck nicely over a fire hydrant.

Campus security didn’t quite know what to do with a young girl with a nice bruise on her head from banging into a steering wheel and who didn’t seem to know her own name.

Sam wasn’t sure why he hadn’t just said ‘Sam’. He thought for sure it was going to be nothing but police and a nice set of bars next but something strange happened. The two middle aged officers were oddly nice to him. They asked him things he had never been asked by law enforcement in his life.

Are you okay? Do you want a blanket? Are you thirsty? Instead of the back of a squad car he ended up at the brightly lit doors of the campus student Health Center.

The woman there was nice.

She was even extra nice when she realized Sam wasn’t just anyone completely blitzed and looking for someplace to crash but was in dire need of some assistance of a kind. Of what sort Sam wasn’t sure but he didn’t know what to do until he found a way out of here. After that every thing would be fine.

There was also the issue of Dean.

Sam started thinking more about his vanishing act and how exactly he should break it to his brother. He would get his confiscated phone back eventually. He could skip speaking all together and text the messages he’d thought about before he killed that fire hydrant. Maybe break into the motel for a few things if Dean wasn’t already back there. If he was there, maybe he could leave a note. Something in handwriting that Dean would really believe instead of some type on the display of his phone.

The nurse took his blood pressure again and asked if he took any prescription drugs. Had he skipped any doses? Anything that might leave him lost or maybe confused?

Sam explained his situation as calmly as possible.

Would it be okay now if he went and found his car because he was sure his mother was waiting for him a few towns over? It was weird that mom didn’t pick up with that number he gave the front desk but he could promise you that his mom sure was a sound sleeper—

The nice and very kind faced woman made it very clear that Sam was spending the night with her in the 34 hours 8 days a week holy sacred grounds of the Student Health Center until someone with legal guardian status arrived. Sam knew that meant a long wait for the local authorities to dig up social services when these people ultimately realized no parent was ever going to show.

Pulling his legs up and resting his heels on the chair he was in, he settled his forehead on one knee. The act itself was something he hadn’t been able to do since he was a kid. When he had been thin enough and small enough. He wondered vaguely why his age had been ratcheted down along with his change. Maybe Dean’s age had been affected then as well and he just couldn’t tell amongst all the other more startling differences.

He tried not to think how fragile his older brother had looked. So small. So fucking lost. He knew he owned all of that now for himself and maybe came off looking a little worse. He didn’t feel all that scared even if that was all anyone he'd met seemed to see. He felt more annoyed. And small. The grip around his legs got tighter when a group of boys on the other side of the room suddenly got louder. The sound of impending violence now confused him when it never had before. He’d always known on some level what his physicality provided him in regards to simple safe passage in the world. But he hadn’t quite realized how much it had. Sam sighed. When he asked about his jacket the fourth time it finally was returned to him, stinking like beer but his phone still right there inside of it.

No messages.

He thought about spending the next five days alone. Trying to get a room somewhere. Staying by himself in some hole that wouldn’t ask for any ID to go along with the credit card he had on him. Sleeping there with the knowledge that the person who charged his card knew he was as alone as a person could be. Rolling up his jacket, Sam managed to squeeze himself in between two waiting chairs and make something of a bed for himself. He’d never fit in anything like that for as far back as he could remember and instead of making him feel safe, he felt the opposite. Snaking his hand into the depths of his jacket pocket he felt and squeezed the phone.

He’d be totally screwed unless he managed to get out of here before dawn.

Sam yawned, bunching up his arms closer to his chest, he let one knee fall over his two chair bed and let it rest over on a third. He would just close his eyes for a second. Just a few minutes and then when this lady had some minor campus student emergency, he was going to be out of the door so fast she wouldn’t even know he was gone until she thought to ask him if he wanted hot chocolate again.

And just like that, Sam fell asleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was morning.

Sam could tell without opening his eyes that the front waiting area was flooded with harsh sunlight along with its washed out overhead fluorescents. Curling closer into the uncomfortable ball he’d made for himself, he listened to the people around him.

“Look, I was told that my brother was taken in here last night?”

"Do you have a name sir?”

“Yeah, Kevin, Kevin Howard.” The guy fidgeted back and forth trying to get his IDs out in a row as the nurse required them. “They said he took a header from a balcony down at Jackson Hall—“

“Ah! That Kevin Howard was taken by ambulance to the hospital.”

Sam burrowed his face further under one arm knowing there was a reason he had never applied to any State schools.

“Shit. D-Do you know if they’ll let a friend in?”

“Didn’t you just say you’re his—“

“Frat brother.” The guy stated proudly. “Pledged together last year.”

Sam groggily listened to the exchange, immediately checking to see if in fact, yes, his phone was now nice and dead. Perfect. So much for his text plan. Blinking away his haze of sleep, he was a little surprised at how crowded the joint had become. Sam woke up in a room of triage. Sitting up awkwardly in his seat bed, he pulled his jacket around himself like a blanket. His neck and his back hurt but he tried not to think about all the new aches and pains that were making him feel sore in places that only got that way when he’d been savagely kicked.

The place was like what-the-fuck-happened-last-night-central. Fractures to sprains. Home built luge rides gone awry. Roof to pool leaps uncalculated. Booze poisoning every other way you looked. It’d be easy to get out of here now, all he had to do was wait for the right moment and take a brisk walk right out that front door—

“Hey, I’m looking for my brother—“

The nurse on duty cut the voice off before it could go any further. Sam looked up sharply at the sound of the easy tone that he’d know just about anywhere.

“Only family are allowed to any and all those who made a trip to the hospital last night. No Frat bro-ha’s, no pledgies, no drinking buds, no—“

“No, no, he’s my real actual brother, um, you’d remember him, tall guy, can barely clear a door and—“

“D-Dean?”

There he was, in the clothes he was wearing yesterday and about a day’s worth that hadn’t been shaved off his face. Sam noted with a small sigh that Dean’s Floyd T-shirt was on inside out and backwards with the tag sticking out at the base of his throat.

The plan to make a run for it until the curse cleared pretty much went out the window right then and there. The raw and utter relief at seeing his older brother sent a wave of lightheadedness through him that had nothing to do with massive amounts of blood loss. The sickening thought of being handed over to one single other person that would discuss his well being right over his head while he was forced to listen made him decide right then and there that he didn’t care what the hell Dean saw.

The sight of him brought back something he used to feel when he was a kid and the world was just one huge shifting place to get lost in. He saw Dean and it was suddenly like when they just got in for the night and locked the door. Like the engine had started and they were on their way down the road. There was nothing to worry about. There was not a thing to fear.

Sam quickly sat up, painfully touching his feet to the floor quickly without even having to bend his knees. He stared at his brother hard, willing him to see the connection like he had done, but knowing it wasn’t going to be that easy. All he wanted in all the world was his brother to get him the hell out of this place. Dean, distracted with the unhelpful front desk, had reluctantly turned in his direction.

“Dean.” Sam repeated, wondering if the tone of his voice would carry over everything else and his brother would just get it. “It’s me.”

“Hold on one sec,” Dean assured the nurse that had already moved on to the next person in line.

Sam watched Dean approach him warily. Sam didn’t have much on him to really prove he was who he said he was. He did have his jacket and his phone though. And the straight blue line.

“Aren’t you a little young to be uh,” Dean glanced around at the carnage. “Partying this hard?”

“Dean, just shut up and listen for a second.” Sam heard himself sound surprisingly just like himself. Sort of. However it sounded it did the trick because instead of walking away, his brother stayed right where he was. Sam held his arms out in exhausted resignation. “It’s me.”

“That’s-that’s my brother’s jacket.” Dean said in a strange low voice. “Where did you find that?”

Sam recognized it as it being caution but there was also some threat behind it. He couldn’t remember Dean seeming this big and tall to him in a real long time. The barely hidden warning in his tone made Sam ill that he was being regarded as some stranger. He dug out his dead phone and held it up.

Dean shifted in place, putting his hands in his jacket pockets. “You’re the one who called me.”

“Figure it out yet?” Sam asked softly so no one else would hear.

His head hurt, his lower body ached in ways he couldn’t explain and he was pretty sure he needed a new pad really soon. The nurse was eyeing Dean in a way that was making Sam nervous. He wanted to show him the back of his neck but he also didn’t want his brother tossed out of here for trying to pick up a 16 year old whatever girl.

The year Sam had been jolted back into brought something to mind.

“I remember your sixteenth birthday.” Sam blurted out.

“What?”

“You thought you were going to get the car. But you didn’t. Dad didn’t even drop you a card. He was in Nebraska. We were in Saint Paul's.”

Dean blinked, uncomfortably acknowledging that fact by not answering it at all.

Sam slipped a strand of hair hanging in his eyes behind his ear and spoke down to the fine boned hands he had folded in his lap. “I thought for damn sure you were gonna cry but you didn’t.”

“S-Sammy?”

Sam waved because it felt like a sixteen year old thing to do.

“Weird night.” He explained.

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

It didn‘t take much discussion or planning to make an exit.

Dean went ahead and shouldered into some enormous guy with a hang over waiting up ahead in line. All it took was that and a few well placed words about the question of sexuality and all hell broke loose. With the pandemonium that ensued, Sam would have thought someone suddenly announced there would be no more watery cheap beer for anyone ever ever again. Ducking out before it got really out of hand, he blinked in the morning light and groaned at the headache that started burning behind his eyes. He hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday. Since then the only thing in his stomach had been that girl’s lighter fluid and even more of the most inexpensive alcohol money could buy.

Not sure where to wait, he found a bench behind a large clump of bushes and watched the door. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled when Dean finally emerged with the retreating crowd. His brother’s jacket was pulled out of place and he was a little breathless but otherwise he remarkably didn’t have a scratch on him.

“Thought you were gonna take at least one in the mouth for sure.” Sam said wryly as Dean rounded the corner.

His brother didn’t respond, he just looked back down at him with an expression like he’d just found something unpleasant in his cereal.

“We-we’d better go.” Sam stood up and tugged his jacket around himself with his crossed arms. He hadn’t needed to look up at Dean in a real long time. It made him feel even more childish than his body already did.

“Are you… okay?” Dean asked, glancing up and down Sam’s new frame with seemingly no ability to gauge its well being.

“I’m starvin'.” Sam muttered, walking past him stiffly, and headed for where he assumed the car might be.

Some chow, some real sleep and a couple more showers were all he needed. First some food, he could really use some food.

“Hey.” Dean mumbled from behind him. “Don’t walk so fast.”

Even though Sam was now at his brother’s chin he was still ahead of him on the pavement. He slowed his pace a little and realized it was a demand he heard fairly often. Or he did after Sam had long ago met his older sibling’s height and had the nerve to keep going.

With a small appreciative sound he wondered at how some things stayed the same no matter how hard the universe pulled at your corners.

 

 

 

 

Everything seemed a lot bigger but he wasn’t quite prepared for what it felt like to sit in a seat he thought couldn’t change no matter what else did.

He kept back the words he wanted to say at what the broad wide vinyl felt like now. The seat was as always adjusted just far enough that his knees would always meet the dash no matter how he rearranged himself, but not any more. The seatbelt kept digging up under his neck no matter what direction he yanked it in. Briefly, his thoughts turned back a decade or so ago, when he’d been about the same size and a different man was behind the wheel.

They were on the highway, headed back to the motel they’d made home out on the fringe. The cheapest, the easiest and sometimes also the farthest away. Sam didn’t mind. It was good to have the small parcel of time to really get a chance to just think. Leaning his head against the window, Sam was working hard at trying to settle into the acceptance stage. The gradual recognition of his new anatomy and its accompanying limitations was starting to take hold.

Unfortunately, Dean tended to be a joy to have around.

Sam figured the decency to keep all comments to himself would end as soon as they were in the enclosed domain of the car. A month ago, out of respect for the sheer horror of it all, he seemed to recall being nothing but helpful despite being equally as alarmed.

Dean had been through it, done it, survived it. But if Sam was expecting anything from his brother, the good or the bad, he was out of luck. The drive was as quiet as it could get. Not even a tape playing. Just the drone of the engine and her shifting gears as they changed lanes.

His hand wandered to his lower belly and he shifted uncomfortably on the damp horrible feel of wadded up gauze between his legs.

“We gotta stop.” Sam grumbled.

“Huh?”

“I need a bathroom.”

“We’re almost—“

“Right now.”

Dean thankfully didn’t argue the point.

More than silently grateful when he saw the next exit almost immediately come into view, Sam found himself watching the approach of the small empty rest stop closely. It was a whole new game so to speak. The men’s room’s were usually left unlocked and open to just anyone to walk in and out of at any time of day or night.

In these tiny two pump stations sometimes there was no rest room at all.

Sam started becoming nervous that he was going to end up having to ask for some kind of key. Gripping the door, he swung it open when they rolled to a stop, willing away the baffling anxiety that was flooding him over a stupid freaking bathroom. All he knew was that he had to get into one right now or he was going to mess up some jeans all over again. He had stashed an extra pad in his jacket about one lifetime ago when he’d raided that closet.

Stepping out uncertainly onto the gravel of the rest stop, he felt for it in his inner pocket and patted himself on the back for having the presence of mind to think of taking one of the things along with him at all. The small building that housed the register was dark inside. The adjoining addition had some kind of garage with a pick up sitting in it with the hood propped up. When he let the door shut behind him he saw that the mechanic on the premises and the probable owner were both sitting idly by the counter.

Their conversation halted at the sight of him.

“Uh, just looking for the head.” Sam mumbled at them.

It didn’t take him long to figure out why he was being scrutinized when usually all he’d usually get from these men would be a nod and dismissal. Regardless of how ungainly and awkward he felt, all eyes seemed to now be covertly and not-so much on him. Watching and waiting for what, he had no idea. The tide always shifted for better or for worse when a female entered the sanctum of a male gathering. He'd never had to admit to himself just how dangerous beneath the surface some men could be.

The sound of the door opening behind him surprised him back into motion, spotting the dark narrow hallway that had a cardboard sign duct taped over it that lead the way.

“Ten bucks.” Dean said as he flipped open his wallet with a nod out to the nearest pump just outside the door.

Sam walked down the cracked dirty linoleum towards the deep scent of antiseptic and mildew. He was going have to get almost half naked in this place just to get what he needed to do done. For some reason he thought about the men at the counter and how maybe they were thinking the same thing. The thought made him move a little faster. Pushing the bathroom door open, he knew this would be over before he knew it.

He also knew that the car was about half full and his brother never put anything in her unless it dipped under a quarter tank.

Sam knew somewhere that he should be annoyed by Dean's presence but all he could feel was relieved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dean was quiet in the diner too.

Having wanted breakfast so badly before, Sam found it was quite another thing when the steaming eggs actually arrived at the table and he could smell them. He picked up his toast instead and chewed it dry. The orange juice helped, the first few sips rejuvenating and refreshing. For some reason he couldn't place, the sharp citrus smell alone was nothing short of wonderful.

“I was thinking…” Sam attempted over the silent table. “That this will last a few days, so-so we’ll need to hit a Wal-mart or something because I can’t wear this forever—“

“Sure.” Dean answered shortly, his mouth full of hash browns.

Sam watched him for a moment as Dean shoveled down his breakfast, wanting no distraction at all but the food in front of him.

“It is really me Dean.”

Dean paused, his fork in mid air, mouth in mid chew. His gaze flickered up right to him, right into his eyes. Sam knew his brother did know. Dean could see it, like Sam had when Dean had made the switch. For some reason even when everything else smoothed, curved and shifted, the eyes stayed exactly the same.

“You know who you look like?” Dean broke out into a grin.

Sam was strangely reminded of the same exact question just the evening before. Only that time it had been some sorority girl with bad fake contacts. Sam thought of the glitzy colored lights and the strange blue of that evening sky. He thought of the pain that had flashed over him in the bathroom stall and the feeling of dread he gotten when he woken up under the stare of the owner of the truck he borrowed. Sam decided to stop thinking about that kid and what could have happened in that room. The toast suddenly seemed heavy and like lead in his stomach.

That party seemed like it had happened about a year ago anyway.

“You look like you.” Dean said, pointing at him with a fork. “But you when you were about 10, and taller and uh—“

“A girl?”

“Yeah.” Dean finished his food and tossed his utensil loudly down onto his plate.

Sam took another bite of his toast and wondered if the waitress would give him coffee if he asked. She had wordlessly poured some for Dean but skipped his mug entirely.

“Am I pretty?”

Sam watched Dean, knowing that the question would freak him out as much as it would amuse him on some level. Strangely enough, Dean’s chest hitched in something that sounded like an apologetic laugh.

“Uh... well, define pretty...”

Sam smiled and shoved the rest of his bread into his mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Bet you’ll be wantin’ that herbal tea right about now?”

Sam wasn’t looking at Dean but he knew his brother was all smiles. He had been really hoping that Dean wouldn’t remember that profoundly stupid statement he had made over a month ago.

He knew what a cycle was. Sam knew about eggs, fallopian tubes and even more than a little about ovulation. Sleeping with a woman for almost two years as she went through hers on a regular basis might as well have put him on the calendar at the same time. But the reality of what it all really felt like well… He had to admit, just watching Dean last month had been an exercise in extreme self censorship. He had just thought that his brother had been on the most part exaggerating.

Intensely.

He’d wadded up all the blankets on the bed and was pressing them up against his belly like it would work some mojo on his insides. The television sounded too loud and battered the bad traffic and the local highlights right into his brain.

“This is... this is... horrible.” Sam concluded with a clenched jaw.

“Here.” Dean was moving behind him.

Sam heard a beer bottle hiss open and the rattle of pills in a plastic bottle.

“It’ll take the edge off.” His brother nudged him in the shoulder.

Sam rolled over, holding out a shaking hand for the tablets and helping himself to a good few gulps of cold beer to wash it down. Hair of the dog and all that crap. It was tough to get down but he knew it would do the trick.

“Ya know Sammy,” Dean sighed. “I never thought we could you know, sit around one day and be able to talk like this.”

“We’re not talking.” Sam observed. God, he felt like he could take another shower. Maybe he could just live in the bathtub until this ran its course.

“You know, talk about what sanitary napkin is truly the most absorbent and how miraculous it is to bleed without dying—“

“Sh-Shut up.”

“Just sayin.” Dean reaffirmed as he fell back onto his own bed. “This new connection we share? It’s fucking magical is what it is.”

Sam felt horrifying magical tears threaten to start running down his face if Dean didn’t shut the hell up soon. He felt inexplicably tenuous for no reason at all. His mind wandered to near hysterics and back down to a sobering wash of gray that didn’t make any logical sense. He rubbed hard at his eyes and groped for the beer bottle again.

“Well, I’ve got even more good news.”

Sam wasn’t sure he wanted to hear anything at the moment. Good news or no.

“Guess what turned up on campus this morning? I mean, besides your boobs.”

With a sigh, Sam rolled over to look at his brother. Work never left a guy any time to spend in the fetal position with his curse.

“Another body?”

“Yup. A local this time. ” Dean folded his hands behind his head and yawned. “Doesn’t look like this one has any connection to the school whatsoever. Hasn’t hit the news yet, looks like the campus wants to keep its applications flowing.”

Sam dragged himself up and groaned as his insides shifted in all the wrong ways. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Back to the library.”

“Tell me you got an idea.”

“I think I do.” Sam tested his limbs by stretching out as far as he could. With a vague flutter of surprise, he found he didn’t even make it off the edge of the bed. “Just need to take a shower first.”

“I bet you Batman never said that.”

“While I’m in there, do me a favor—?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dean was already up and checking for his car keys. “But no bras. You don't need one anyway.”

Sam shut the bathroom door and thankfully began shedding the clothes he had had on since the night before. He was going to throw them away. Maybe even burn them. Running the sink, he splashed water on his face a few times before he realized he didn’t have to shave. Waiting for the shower to warm up a little he took a look at his bare chest in the stark light under the mirror.

With a frown, he turned sideways.

When Dean was right, he sure was right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sam wished he hadn’t told Dean to just grab whatever kind of clothes in the ‘sweat pants’ and ‘other’ section that was just labeled ‘small’.

Although the selection was surprisingly not the most horrible thing Sam had ever witnessed, he still regretted that he hadn’t been a little bit more involved. There were some draw stringed track pants. Some T-shirts that didn’t say anything retarded like ‘SPOILED ROTTEN’ in glitter across the chest. A few hoodie jackets in colors that didn’t remind him of Easter eggs. There was a separate and unspecified bag filled with more pads that Sam knew better than to thank for let alone mention ever again. Upon closer inspection Sam found they were even built for teens! and quickly experienced a newfound deep appreciation for attention to detail that he thought he could ever have.

The new underwear was annoying but he predicted his brother would crumble at some point and be unable to resist the treasure trove of opportunity which was this situation.

When he put on the pink panties dotted with hearts he silently wondered what exactly was reining in what could be a never ending stream of pointless jokes and some boob grabbing. If some stupid underwear was all he was going to have to hear about it he would consider himself lucky and wear them without a freaking word. He figured Dean hadn’t quite forgotten what his time was like just that month ago anyway. It was probably still a little fresh in his memory. Maybe too fresh to find what happened to Sam all that completely hilarious.

But all that aside, he wished he had gone himself to get what he had to wear. They fit a little too well. The accurately sized clothing accentuated his shorter but somehow long skinny legs. The narrow impossible waist. Thin shoulders and bony wrists. He wished he had clothes he could disappear into a little bit. Hide away in a few layers of oversized clothes to cloak what he had become.

Sam refocused on the text under his hands.

The place wasn’t very crowded.

Every now and then someone would pause and look in his direction but otherwise every student there that late on a Sunday had nothing but studying on their mind. Not the questionable age of someone else buried under their own stack of books. It was a quiet intense stream of focus. Heads down. Nerves frayed.

It was then somewhat of a shock when he was recognized.

“You.”

The sight of the guy made Sam stiffen, all his muscles tensing in what he swiftly realized was some brand of fear he had never experienced before. He was keenly aware of the distance of where the kid stood. The presence of others nearby. His own ability to back away. The solid table that stood between them both.

“Yer—yer the chick that wrecked my truck.”

It would figure this jerk off would be pissed off about his truck and not the fact that Sam had left him tied to his own floor for who knew how long. Sam remembered the pony tailed girl say that truck’s owner’s name was Josh.

“You got the wrong chick.” Sam told him with a shrug.

He involuntarily looked over his shoulder to find Dean across a sea of tables, flipping through over a year’s worth of tides and moon phases like Sam had asked him to do.

“I could sue your ass.” The guy named Josh said in a low voice.

“I told you, you got me confused with someone else—“

The book Sam had open in front of him was slammed closed, the hand over it too close to him than he liked.

Sam hands closed into fists. He could just get up and leave. Or he could try another angle. Tell this guy that he just got in today and never set eyes on him or his truck in his entire life. Sometimes when you just kept to your story and your cool the person confronting you had no choice but choke on their rationale no matter how sure they thought they were.

“What’s your name?”

He thought of some name to give this guy but all he could think of was how it had felt when that body had crushed him into that unmade bed. How this person just attempted to do what he wanted just because he had the power to do so. Just because he felt like it. That hand hadn’t moved, and Sam was staring down at it thinking how he could break at least two fingers before this guy could shove him off with brute strength alone.

Sam looked him evenly in the eye.

“Sam.”

“Sam what?”

A stack of folded newspapers suddenly landed in front of Sam’s face. Dean’s abrupt arrival startled them both.

“I dunno, Sam.” Dean sighed in that way he did after being forced to read for more than one hour. “I got a look at them all but it doesn’t seem to add up the way you were sayin’ it might— Oh. Sorry.”

Sam watched the guy named Josh take in the sight of his brother carefully. Dean, even on his best of days, always looked a little rough. After an all nighter and no change of clothes he looked a little rougher than usual. Sam never noticed quite how other people reacted to him unless he was paying extra special attention. He sure as hell was doing that now. Dean was about as tall as the kid, but he had everything that no gym or a weekend soccer game gave you, and the guy named Josh saw it right away. Sam figured that was one trait that most men had. They could gauge fairly quickly just exactly what and who could kick their ass.

Dean’s eyes narrowed at the kid.

His brother also had the uncanny knack of being able to spot a prick from about a mile away.

“If yer in need of a book there’s plenty around.”

“Nope. Just leavin’.”

Sam watched him walk away and let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

“Who the hell was that?” Dean asked through a yawn as he pulled up a chair and straddled it.

“Nobody.” Sam mumbled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It turned out that Sam’s guess at what had been showing up once a month to pick off the unwary in the night of the college campus grounds hadn’t been correct at all.

He’d been close though.

Oddly enough, it was his own transformation that made him think of lunar activity at all. Even stranger, it had been his body’s own new shape that made him even consider what might hunt but not eat. Kill but not maul. Destroy but not gloat. Something drawn out by the phases of pale light that cycled above and made even more confusing by the lack of any pattern in its victims because the pattern was there was no pattern at all.

Sam sometimes thought their job was a lot like bird watching in way. No matter how hard the evidence, you never really were quite sure exactly what you were dealing with until you had the thing right in your sight. Lucky for them, they always knew how to come prepared for just about anything. Carefully loading two shotguns, Sam checked them twice before laying them aside on the bedspread. Pulling out the motel bible so he wouldn’t have to ruin their own, he tore out the pages they’d need and started folding them into halves.

Dean was already zipping up a duffel of what he’d need if they were actually lucky enough to find any remains. It would be okay if they didn’t, because Sam was sure he knew how to put the thing to sleep forever without blistering apart whatever was left of it rotting in the ground.

“I’ll be back in a few hours.”

Sam looked up from the torn pages of the Apocrypha.

“What?”

“I’ll be back in a few hours.” Dean repeated, checking his pistol before shoving into the backs of his jeans. “Get a pizza and keep the door locked.”

Sam snorted.

“Don’t fucking talk to me like that.”

His brother paused, looking sharply back at him.

Sam felt like he maybe had never been this furious in his entire life. He realized it was fueled by frustration and fear, but his brother was supposed to understand, he was supposed to know that he wasn’t any different.

“Talk to you like what?” Dean held out his hands. “Maybe you don’t remember, but you almost had me locked in a closet about a month back, and that was just for being alive and breathin’!”

“I—I just didn’t want— you don’t understand—“

“Yeah, well if I didn’t then?” Dean cut him off grimly, his eyes briefly going up and down Sam’s body. “I’m getting a real good idea now.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“What are you gonna do Sam?” Dean demanded. “Hold up the back of my shotgun?“

Sam’s face burned.

“Notta chance.” Dean was shaking his head. ”I know how this little song and dance is gonna go. You’re gonna promise up and down that you’ll sit tight in the car and then guess what? You won’t and I’ll be in the middle of it and there you’ll be, all... all 90 pounds of you.”

Sam watched Dean turn and check the closed curtains for some reason.

“Ain’t gonna happen Sammy.”

Sam wasn’t prepared when his brother just suddenly came at him. He scrambled to stay on his feet, but Dean had grasped him down around his waist and actually picked him up right off the floor.

He wasn’t sure what made him angrier. The fact that there was nothing he could fucking do about it or the fact that Dean had thought about it all well in advance. Dean pushed him down onto the carpet between the beds and snapped the steel cuff down neatly, holding Sam writhing viciously in place between his knees while he adjusted it carefully to fit a small wrist.

“Oh and here ya go...”

Sam watched in disbelief as Dean leisurely channel surfed until he hit the number he wanted.

“Lifetime network.” Dean nodded down to him. “And look, yer in luck. There’s an Alley Mcbeal marathon on too.”

“D-Dean!” Sam yanked hard on the metal attached to the bedpost, hissing when the movement hurt more than it should. “W-Wait!”

“Be back in a few hours.”

Dean held up the remote and put it on the window sill by the door. About one hundred miles out of Sam’s reach.

“This’ll be right here if you wanna watch anything else.”

With a small wink, he was gone with the sound solid clank of the motel door lock slamming shut.

“Dean! You-You didn’t even take the— the...”

Sam slumped down against the small set of drawers that sat wedged between beds and sighed. Screaming would bring attention. Attention would find a young girl attached to a motel bed and soon thereafter, a rabid hunt for his older brother. He was half tempted to start yelling his head off anyway just for the satisfying ten o’clock news results.

He rolled his head to look at the carefully folded triangles of the deuterocanonical papers of the Old Testament.

“You didn’t even take the scriptures you fucking jerk.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey- This is finished. I missed a chapter because I suck.
> 
>  
> 
> _Sam turns into a girl._
> 
>  
> 
> This is partied with 'Isochronism' where Dean turns into a girl. ha.
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/15435531/chapters/35828664

“Bet you’ll be wantin’ that herbal tea right about now?”

Sam wasn’t looking at Dean but he knew his brother was all smiles. He had been really hoping that Dean wouldn’t remember that profoundly stupid statement he had made over a month ago.

He knew what a cycle was. Sam knew about eggs, fallopian tubes and even more than a little about ovulation. Sleeping with a woman for almost two years as she went through hers on a regular basis might as well have put him on the calendar at the same time. But the reality of what it all really felt like well… He had to admit, just watching Dean last month had been an exercise in extreme self censorship. He had just thought that his brother had been on the most part exaggerating.

Intensely.

He’d wadded up all the blankets on the bed and was pressing them up against his belly like it would work some mojo on his insides. The television sounded too loud and battered the bad traffic and the local highlights right into his brain.

“This is... this is... horrible.” Sam concluded with a clenched jaw.

“Here.” Dean was moving behind him.

Sam heard a beer bottle hiss open and the rattle of pills in a plastic bottle.

“It’ll take the edge off.” His brother nudged him in the shoulder.

Sam rolled over, holding out a shaking hand for the tablets and helping himself to a good few gulps of cold beer to wash it down. Hair of the dog and all that crap. It was tough to get down but he knew it would do the trick.

“Ya know Sammy,” Dean sighed. “I never thought we could you know, sit around one day and be able to talk like this.”

“We’re not talking.” Sam observed. God, he felt like he could take another shower. Maybe he could just live in the bathtub until this ran its course.

“You know, talk about what sanitary napkin is truly the most absorbent and how miraculous it is to bleed without dying—“

“Sh-Shut up.”

“Just sayin.” Dean reaffirmed as he fell back onto his own bed. “This new connection we share? It’s fucking magical is what it is.”

Sam felt horrifying magical tears threaten to start running down his face if Dean didn’t shut the hell up soon. He felt inexplicably tenuous for no reason at all. His mind wandered to near hysterics and back down to a sobering wash of gray that didn’t make any logical sense. He rubbed hard at his eyes and groped for the beer bottle again.

“Well, I’ve got even more good news.”

Sam wasn’t sure he wanted to hear anything at the moment. Good news or no.

“Guess what turned up on campus this morning? I mean, besides your boobs.”

With a sigh, Sam rolled over to look at his brother. Work never left a guy any time to spend in the fetal position with his curse.

“Another body?”

“Yup. A local this time. ” Dean folded his hands behind his head and yawned. “Doesn’t look like this one has any connection to the school whatsoever. Hasn’t hit the news yet, looks like the campus wants to keep its applications flowing.”

Sam dragged himself up and groaned as his insides shifted in all the wrong ways. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Back to the library.”

“Tell me you got an idea.”

“I think I do.” Sam tested his limbs by stretching out as far as he could. With a vague flutter of surprise, he found he didn’t even make it off the edge of the bed. “Just need to take a shower first.”

“I bet you Batman never said that.”

“While I’m in there, do me a favor—?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dean was already up and checking for his car keys. “But no bras. You don't need one anyway.”

Sam shut the bathroom door and thankfully began shedding the clothes he had had on since the night before. He was going to throw them away. Maybe even burn them. Running the sink, he splashed water on his face a few times before he realized he didn’t have to shave. Waiting for the shower to warm up a little he took a look at his bare chest in the stark light under the mirror.

With a frown, he turned sideways.

When Dean was right, he sure was right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sam wished he hadn’t told Dean to just grab whatever kind of clothes in the ‘sweat pants’ and ‘other’ section that was just labeled ‘small’.

Although the selection was surprisingly not the most horrible thing Sam had ever witnessed, he still regretted that he hadn’t been a little bit more involved. There were some draw stringed track pants. Some T-shirts that didn’t say anything retarded like ‘SPOILED ROTTEN’ in glitter across the chest. A few hoodie jackets in colors that didn’t remind him of Easter eggs. There was a separate and unspecified bag filled with more pads that Sam knew better than to thank for let alone mention ever again. Upon closer inspection Sam found they were even built for teens! and quickly experienced a newfound deep appreciation for attention to detail that he thought he could ever have.

The new underwear was annoying but he predicted his brother would crumble at some point and be unable to resist the treasure trove of opportunity which was this situation.

When he put on the pink panties dotted with hearts he silently wondered what exactly was reining in what could be a never ending stream of pointless jokes and some boob grabbing. If some stupid underwear was all he was going to have to hear about it he would consider himself lucky and wear them without a freaking word. He figured Dean hadn’t quite forgotten what his time was like just that month ago anyway. It was probably still a little fresh in his memory. Maybe too fresh to find what happened to Sam all that completely hilarious.

But all that aside, he wished he had gone himself to get what he had to wear. They fit a little too well. The accurately sized clothing accentuated his shorter but somehow long skinny legs. The narrow impossible waist. Thin shoulders and bony wrists. He wished he had clothes he could disappear into a little bit. Hide away in a few layers of oversized clothes to cloak what he had become.

Sam refocused on the text under his hands.

The place wasn’t very crowded.

Every now and then someone would pause and look in his direction but otherwise every student there that late on a Sunday had nothing but studying on their mind. Not the questionable age of someone else buried under their own stack of books. It was a quiet intense stream of focus. Heads down. Nerves frayed.

It was then somewhat of a shock when he was recognized.

“You.”

The sight of the guy made Sam stiffen, all his muscles tensing in what he swiftly realized was some brand of fear he had never experienced before. He was keenly aware of the distance of where the kid stood. The presence of others nearby. His own ability to back away. The solid table that stood between them both.

“Yer—yer the chick that wrecked my truck.”

It would figure this jerk off would be pissed off about his truck and not the fact that Sam had left him tied to his own floor for who knew how long. Sam remembered the pony tailed girl say that truck’s owner’s name was Josh.

“You got the wrong chick.” Sam told him with a shrug.

He involuntarily looked over his shoulder to find Dean across a sea of tables, flipping through over a year’s worth of tides and moon phases like Sam had asked him to do.

“I could sue your ass.” The guy named Josh said in a low voice.

“I told you, you got me confused with someone else—“

The book Sam had open in front of him was slammed closed, the hand over it too close to him than he liked.

Sam hands closed into fists. He could just get up and leave. Or he could try another angle. Tell this guy that he just got in today and never set eyes on him or his truck in his entire life. Sometimes when you just kept to your story and your cool the person confronting you had no choice but choke on their rationale no matter how sure they thought they were.

“What’s your name?”

He thought of some name to give this guy but all he could think of was how it had felt when that body had crushed him into that unmade bed. How this person just attempted to do what he wanted just because he had the power to do so. Just because he felt like it. That hand hadn’t moved, and Sam was staring down at it thinking how he could break at least two fingers before this guy could shove him off with brute strength alone.

Sam looked him evenly in the eye.

“Sam.”

“Sam what?”

A stack of folded newspapers suddenly landed in front of Sam’s face. Dean’s abrupt arrival startled them both.

“I dunno, Sam.” Dean sighed in that way he did after being forced to read for more than one hour. “I got a look at them all but it doesn’t seem to add up the way you were sayin’ it might— Oh. Sorry.”

Sam watched the guy named Josh take in the sight of his brother carefully. Dean, even on his best of days, always looked a little rough. After an all nighter and no change of clothes he looked a little rougher than usual. Sam never noticed quite how other people reacted to him unless he was paying extra special attention. He sure as hell was doing that now. Dean was about as tall as the kid, but he had everything that no gym or a weekend soccer game gave you, and the guy named Josh saw it right away. Sam figured that was one trait that most men had. They could gauge fairly quickly just exactly what and who could kick their ass.

Dean’s eyes narrowed at the kid.

His brother also had the uncanny knack of being able to spot a prick from about a mile away.

“If yer in need of a book there’s plenty around.”

“Nope. Just leavin’.”

Sam watched him walk away and let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

“Who the hell was that?” Dean asked through a yawn as he pulled up a chair and straddled it.

“Nobody.” Sam mumbled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It turned out that Sam’s guess at what had been showing up once a month to pick off the unwary in the night of the college campus grounds hadn’t been correct at all.

He’d been close though.

Oddly enough, it was his own transformation that made him think of lunar activity at all. Even stranger, it had been his body’s own new shape that made him even consider what might hunt but not eat. Kill but not maul. Destroy but not gloat. Something drawn out by the phases of pale light that cycled above and made even more confusing by the lack of any pattern in its victims because the pattern was there was no pattern at all.

Sam sometimes thought their job was a lot like bird watching in way. No matter how hard the evidence, you never really were quite sure exactly what you were dealing with until you had the thing right in your sight. Lucky for them, they always knew how to come prepared for just about anything. Carefully loading two shotguns, Sam checked them twice before laying them aside on the bedspread. Pulling out the motel bible so he wouldn’t have to ruin their own, he tore out the pages they’d need and started folding them into halves.

Dean was already zipping up a duffel of what he’d need if they were actually lucky enough to find any remains. It would be okay if they didn’t, because Sam was sure he knew how to put the thing to sleep forever without blistering apart whatever was left of it rotting in the ground.

“I’ll be back in a few hours.”

Sam looked up from the torn pages of the Apocrypha.

“What?”

“I’ll be back in a few hours.” Dean repeated, checking his pistol before shoving into the backs of his jeans. “Get a pizza and keep the door locked.”

Sam snorted.

“Don’t fucking talk to me like that.”

His brother paused, looking sharply back at him.

Sam felt like he maybe had never been this furious in his entire life. He realized it was fueled by frustration and fear, but his brother was supposed to understand, he was supposed to know that he wasn’t any different.

“Talk to you like what?” Dean held out his hands. “Maybe you don’t remember, but you almost had me locked in a closet about a month back, and that was just for being alive and breathin’!”

“I—I just didn’t want— you don’t understand—“

“Yeah, well if I didn’t then?” Dean cut him off grimly, his eyes briefly going up and down Sam’s body. “I’m getting a real good idea now.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“What are you gonna do Sam?” Dean demanded. “Hold up the back of my shotgun?“

Sam’s face burned.

“Notta chance.” Dean was shaking his head. ”I know how this little song and dance is gonna go. You’re gonna promise up and down that you’ll sit tight in the car and then guess what? You won’t and I’ll be in the middle of it and there you’ll be, all... all 90 pounds of you.”

Sam watched Dean turn and check the closed curtains for some reason.

“Ain’t gonna happen Sammy.”

Sam wasn’t prepared when his brother just suddenly came at him. He scrambled to stay on his feet, but Dean had grasped him down around his waist and actually picked him up right off the floor.

He wasn’t sure what made him angrier. The fact that there was nothing he could fucking do about it or the fact that Dean had thought about it all well in advance. Dean pushed him down onto the carpet between the beds and snapped the steel cuff down neatly, holding Sam writhing viciously in place between his knees while he adjusted it carefully to fit a small wrist.

“Oh and here ya go...”

Sam watched in disbelief as Dean leisurely channel surfed until he hit the number he wanted.

“Lifetime network.” Dean nodded down to him. “And look, yer in luck. There’s an Alley Mcbeal marathon on too.”

“D-Dean!” Sam yanked hard on the metal attached to the bedpost, hissing when the movement hurt more than it should. “W-Wait!”

“Be back in a few hours.”

Dean held up the remote and put it on the window sill by the door. About one hundred miles out of Sam’s reach.

“This’ll be right here if you wanna watch anything else.”

With a small wink, he was gone with the sound solid clank of the motel door lock slamming shut.

“Dean! You-You didn’t even take the— the...”

Sam slumped down against the small set of drawers that sat wedged between beds and sighed. Screaming would bring attention. Attention would find a young girl attached to a motel bed and soon thereafter, a rabid hunt for his older brother. He was half tempted to start yelling his head off anyway just for the satisfying ten o’clock news results.

He rolled his head to look at the carefully folded triangles of the deuterocanonical papers of the Old Testament.

“You didn’t even take the scriptures you fucking jerk.”


	4. Chapter 4

Sam had never scored a hitched ride so fast in his entire life.

The car was one of the kinds he had actually never seen the inside of before. It was the slightly sparkly variety that always made you turn your head if you stopped near one at a light. You never really had much choice but to pay close attention to the massive bass pounding somewhere in its tricked out trunk stereo system. In fact, when it pulled to a stop next to him on the busy road, he wasn’t even sure if he was going to get in.

But wheels were wheels.

The tinted windows made the dark outside even more unreadable than it already was. He slid further to the opposite end of the soft leather seat. Sam briefly wondered if he had looked like some kind of prostitute out there watching the traffic for a lift. He knew what he’d think if he saw a girl about this age standing around by herself at this hour. The driver was young, way too young to have the kind of cash to own and operate a mobile piece of bling like this one.

“You wanna go to a party?”

“Sure.”

Sam rubbed his wrist still annoyed that his brother had made sure to use the hand cuffs that hadn’t been accidentally slammed in the car door once or twice. The lock was almost busted on those. The pair that had almost made him a semi-permanent addition to the brown flower décor had been the real deal. Sam readjusted the back pack on his lap and tried not to let the simmer of his anger be known with any audible cues. It had still just come down to being a restraint with a mechanism. If Dean had really been thinking that Sam was everything he used to be he would have been a little more thoughtful about the method. He should have known that it wouldn’t have kept someone like them in one place for very long. But an hour was long enough.

“What’s in the bag?”

Despite what his brother had said about the shot gun he had wanted to take one with him. Unfortunately, there was no way to conceal something that awkward with the given options. Sam felt the weight in the zipped up canvas shift between his knees as he moved his thighs closer together. For some reason sitting like he usually did didn’t feel that comfortable anymore. The loaded pistol, the sheathed blade and several artfully folded pages of the thin brittle paper were as easy to carry as they ever were.

“Stuff.”

The kid reassumed his near perfect practiced lounge behind the shiny chrome of the steering wheel and picked up his ringing phone. Sam smiled back uncertainly when the guy caught Sam looking at him. Fighting some weird urge to start laughing like a lunatic, he wondered what this guy would do if he knew what he was actually grinning at. Glancing back down at his hands, he took a deep breath as he flexed them on the thin fabric of the slick nylon blue of his track pants. It was like having some secret hidden pass into people’s lives. He was less than unthreatening, he was something people either wanted to protect or play with.

The conversation beside him quickly turned into an upbeat exchange in Spanish. He caught the gist of it even though he wasn’t fluent himself. Knowing Latin gave you a pass of your own into every single Romance language that existed. To his surprise, there actually really was a party. The thought that this kid was at all being sincere confused him a little.

With a small tap to the elaborate array of lights above the stick, the bass started booming so hard Sam thought he was going to start losing teeth if he stayed in there for much longer. Looking up as they slowed for the red light he felt his pulse quicken with some relief at seeing he was now exactly five blocks from the edge of the campus grounds.

Without a word he swung open the heavy door and shut it behind him. The act was so sudden he didn’t even hear the driver say a word if there had been any protest that could make it over the music. Spotting a 7-Eleven that might sell flashlights he crossed the street and headed towards it. Even if they were the cheap plastic kind that ate the inside out of the batteries in no time flat, it didn’t matter.

Sam just needed something he could use.

 

 

 

 

The finely chopped lawns that spread out wide and empty between buildings were different places without the usual traffic.

At least they were to most people. Sam was almost on the opposite side of that spectrum. He was used to being in places that were supposed to be filled with voices and footfalls. The years had made him more accustomed to finding the underside of the function, the quiet locked up spaces and the still objects left by the people who only knew the same with all the lights on.

Pulling the back pack onto both shoulders, he paused at a line of trees, using their shadows to become one himself for a few minutes. A look up into the sky showed the waning sickle of moon through the softly swaying overhead branches. Even though he didn’t weigh that much anymore he felt a sense of security he wasn’t expecting in his ability to hide. It was oddly exhilarating to feel as slight as the span of the tree trunks. The act of making his passage undetectable was almost effortless now with the newfound lightness in his step. Listening carefully, he had made the shallow grove his fourth stop in the careful spiral he was traveling towards the campus center.

There was no telling where his brother would be out here in the same dark. He knew that to some extent they were of like minds when it came to the how’s and why’s of a job, but Dean tended to get a lot more unpredictable when left to his own devices. Tracking a guy like his brother was a little challenging even when there was no attempt to be covert. When it was time to vanish it appeared that was just what happened. All of the lines of caution became redefined when you started moving solo. Sam sort of noticed the same kind of liberation and hindrance himself whenever their duties sent them in separate directions.

Swinging his gaze in all 360 degrees Sam found himself studying the plain of grass that stretched out on the opposite side of the path. It was far from dawn but the cool night had brought on some condensation down over the ground. Although there were quite a few of them, the far off standing lamps lit up the campus’s sidewalks with no consistency to be of any use other than check points. However, the dull wash revealed a tell tale line cut through the moisture that clung to the lawn.

Walking across the same route so he wouldn’t leave the same sloppy traces of his own direction, he quickened his pace. Holding the pistol aimed down and away because the elastic of his pants wouldn’t hold the weight, he glanced up at the neatly painted white sign that politely demanded that you stay off the grass. He smiled a little. Not very long ago his brother had gone this way.

He’d been headed south and going right towards the side of the school that faced the black creaking woods.

 

 

 

 

He knew without getting much closer that it was a body. The even unbroken pattern of the landscaping didn’t give the familiar shape much else to be. There was a paper shopping bag lying near by the still form, its contents not scattered or flung. All of it, every oddly serene detail was just as consistent as the others that had been found.

Sam quickly crouched down low next to the woman and slipped a finger up against her neck. There were no bruises. No fright in her eyes. Not even a hair out of place. It was as if she had just decided to stretch out down in the damp grass and fade away.

So they were too late.

Sitting back on his heels, he wondered how to exactly go about contacting the campus security without bringing anything but his voice into the mix. He didn’t want them to make him into any kind of lead they could waste their time on. Although, pretty much anything those guys could do was a waste of time. They could maybe start asking the students not to walk around alone at night all by themselves. That was pretty good advice even when there wasn’t something predatory slipping out as soon as the sun went down.

With a small hard sigh he passed his hand over the young woman’s eyes to set them closed. Resting her hands on her middle instead of the careless causal toss they had been left beside her, he knew there was no crime scene to ruin here. The scattered pathway lights lent a dull gleam off his pistol when he thoughtfully raised the muzzle back up towards the dark tangle of undergrowth that lay only a several yards away. Someone or something had suddenly stepped back into the black swallow of the trees. Sam's teeth grit when he realized he was being observed.

He knew it wasn’t his brother but he figured the thing already knew he was here now so why not make his presence well known?

“Dean!” Sam called out.

Everything about him that had carried weight was completely gone. His voice sounded shrill and questioning. The volume of it wasn’t even close to half of what he knew it could be.

The edge of the forest didn’t lead onwards and forever but it was enough of a slip of woods that he could get himself turned around a good few times before he got out the other side again.

“Dean! You out here?”

Entering out over the brittle floor of leaves he stepped over a fallen tree trunk and glanced up at the sweeping boughs that closed over his head. It turned into another universe of sounds; every movement nature made became suspect. It all started layering over and over itself until he was forced to stop. Listening closely to discern what he knew for fact over what was just playing to his now abundant and decidedly limber imagination wasn’t easy.

His gaze fell on a tree that sat almost directly in his path.

At first, Sam didn’t realize what he was looking at. All he knew was that whatever he was looking at was strange. The base of the trees all around were rooted in the same dark wet churned earth with a small windfall of dried leaves piled up against their sides. Some of them had grown into each other, their limbs a twisted snarl on the journey towards more sunlight. But the tree right in front of him seemed to be standing all by itself. Instead of the gnarled knobby roots of the maples and oaks that seemed to have taken over the place, this plant was different. Black, perfectly smooth, it caught the meager refection from his flashlight and glowed it back like polished obsidian. Perfectly straight until its symmetric branches started to span out from its trunk in measured identical distances from each other, it looked like nothing else in the flora that surrounded it.

Cocking his head, he stepped closer.

It was easier to fold the paper. Using every thin page within the entire holy book’s binding was sometimes like trying to provide a careful inoculation with a hefty bottle of police riot mace. The act of wrapping specific pages down carefully into easily tossed objects had less to do with divine simulacrum and much more about making something that would stick like a thorn into the side of something soft. Like holy water, if their target was what they assumed it was, the touch of the scriptures would be like pressing a hot iron brand against unprepared flesh.

Sam wasn’t sure what its actual shape was. Not like it was when it was doing its best to hide in plain sight. Not everything had a face to sketch later on anyway. Even fewer had a pair of eyes you could note a color on. It probably thought it had been doing a pretty good job of it so far. It had a dead body for every month it had risen quietly out of the ground without calling any attention to itself. Studying the length of it, Sam crouched down by his bag and considered how far the pitch branches went up as he lost sight of them in the jumble of foliage above. He wouldn’t have to toss his ninja star made pages of text. He could just walk right up and stick them in like a bulletin board.

Dad had always said in about one hundred different variations that what could kill you might never look like what you think it should. The gaping jaws of a great white weren’t exactly what they had out here in the shifting shadows to directly pinpoint when and where to duck. The lethal didn’t hang signs and the poisonous wasn’t always brandished in a safety orange.

When he got closer to its bizarre slick surface he saw that it was damp, condensation settled on it and running down its minor imperfections like sweat.

The words that went along with the press of sharp edged paper weren’t the hardest or even the most fantastical the book had to offer. Sometimes the easy squeeze of a trigger and the equivalent of a single gunshot was all it took to put down some of the most powerful creatures that walked the lit world. It wasn’t much different with what stalked the tall grasses on the flip side.

There was a strange sound.

As Sam pushed the third jagged shaped piece of paper into the strange yield of the tree that wasn’t a tree at all, a sharp hissing noise began. It reminded him of leaving a kettle on an open fire when the water was just starting to pick up to boil. Hurriedly pushing in the last of the paper in a pattern that would lend even more to the entry wound so to speak, he stepped back with his ready firearm and waited for what might happen next.

He didn’t expect it to move.

The nature of it made it a passive thing that waited for unwary prey. His knowledge of what stood right before him did nothing to lessen the danger. Paying extra special attention wouldn’t do him a whole lot of good either. The noise had started into a guttural hissing and he glanced down to see that the circle of paper he’d made was now running black sap in steady thick ropes of liquid down its trunk. It smelled warm and heavy like blood, not the sweet crisp scent of sap and sugar. As he watched the dark color of the tree starting to pale, turning a sickly gray before his eyes.

So this was it?

Just in case he spun the full barrel in his pistol and counted the consecrated rounds. A few of these plugged where he'd started the work should finish the trick if need be.

The sound was startling no matter how many times in his life he’d prepared himself for it. The stutter of orange light erupting from the weapon sent him back on one foot to brace himself much more than he usually thought to worry about. His new thin arms took the brunt of it however, his aim straying up almost half a foot off the mark. Swearing softly, he compensated. It was no worse than having to correct for a strong wind or a tweaked site. With a little extra attention it all came out just as accurate as ever.

The noise had stopped.

Looking around he was surprised Dean hadn’t showed up by now. Drawn by the rattling ring of three solid discharges, his brother wasn’t going to be the only one who would come running when they heard something like that on the campus in the middle of the night. Not to mention the brand new body that was laying just a few yards away. All he had to do now was—

Everything went a blinding sheet of white.

Sam knew it was bad news when he realized he hadn’t felt anything until he was lying flat out on his back a good distance away. Whether he dropped it or it had been flung aside, his pistol was no longer in his grip or anywhere on the ground nearby. Groaning, he brought a shaking hand up under his eye where a thick branch had brought itself down and across his face and chest. The faint stickiness over his collar bone told him pretty much all he needed to know. Nothing broken. Maybe some stitches later. Sitting up a wave of light flared in front of his eyes and he had time to wonder if he’d hit his head a little harder than he thought.

He couldn’t see it but he could hear the deep whine and creak of wood as it laboriously bent and twisted above in the dim mottle of the trees. It was coming back.

Without thinking much about it, Sam quickly rolled as fast and hard as he could to the side. The scraping feel of a dozen branches whooshing down into the ground beside him gave him enough incentive to roll one more time, his hand landing on the flat cool metal of a gun.

Sam frowned down at it. It wasn’t his. Rolling one more time onto his back, he flipped it up and leveled it out not caring much how his brother’s much heavier and finely etched semi-automatic came to be sitting around in the mud like cast off garbage. The recoil was much easier to take with his shoulders firmly grounded in the soil, and this time, when the bullets shattered into the now stark white surface of the creature’s guise, Sam knew it had finally found the mark.

The tree that had never really been a tree at all gathered itself up and straightened into its full height, the branches not quite lifting back to where they had hung stoically just before. The bleached skin of its façade bled freely from the wounds Sam had inflicted on it, flowing and almost spraying like someone had turned on a gurgling faucet.

His gaze flickered up when he heard the sharp sound of wood breaking. After a few feet up into the leaves he couldn’t make out much of anything even with his weak flashlight trained up into the slow churn of the breeze.

Another dull crack made him quickly sit up and attempt to get to his feet. Hissing, he found one of his ankles had made some unfortunate contact with the ground when he’d landed. Testing it, he found that he could put about as much pressure on it as he could to maybe get to a stand again. He’d never twisted an ankle in his entire life. Especially from just getting pushed over.

Crawling backwards and making sure he was well out of the tree’s range, he checked the magazine as it slid out into his palm. That was strange. Dean had fired the weapon. Recently. There were only a few shots left in the cartridge. Why hadn’t he heard any of it? The campus was so quiet you could hear a car door slam clear cross the quad—

The withered white circumference of the target loudly ruptured, oozing legions splitting up and down its length. For a moment, Sam thought the sheath of fleshy wood was starting to implode somehow. Two more fractured holes suddenly burst through its skin, the exit marks and sound something that Sam knew well enough to cause him to flatten back against the ground. It was gun fire. Gun fire coming from the inside out.

He blinked up at it.

The fissure widened enough that some darker shape inside of it started to become visible, something not made from the gray gelatinous make up of the being. The small circular knot on the tree’s bark that had begun to drip like heated wax was now elongated practically to the ground. From between its strained edges, something fell out, limply and apart from the rapid deterioration of what stood around it.

It was an arm.

Dean’s other gun dropped from a pale hanging hand. Scrambling backwards to try to get back onto his feet, Sam swayed to a stand, clutching the pistol in one hand and the nice dry rough hewn of an old oak to keep him up. He abruptly thought of every crime photo they’d seen. Every single lack of indication of a struggle. Every detail around the body without one sign to suggest that these people had done anything but get comfortable and suffocate for no good reason.

A shoulder fell loose.

“D-Dean!”

Ignoring the red hot pain that almost sent him back onto the ground, Sam rushed to the gaping hole and grasped the wrist and arm at the elbow. His brother’s body moved loosely in the hollow’s slushy insides. The thing was dying and it wasn’t holding on tight anymore.

Pulling as hard as he could, Dean slid sideways, his head slipping free and hanging limply in the air.

He wasn’t prepared for the unexpected full dead weight of his brother when the rest of it gave way. Dean’s body fell in the direction in which it was being heaved and that was right down on top of Sam. Everything went pale again as the breath got knocked clear out from his lungs. Sam felt his hands. He worked the phantom of their prior broadness and strength. His hands could handle the stature of someone like his brother with no problem but now he was suddenly barely able to lift one shoulder away so he could get out from under him.

Sam turned his brother’s face so he could catch it in the flashlight he wedged up under his arm. His features were set just like all the others. Eyes wide but calm.

Dean had interrupted its feeding. Sam had done the exact same thing but it hadn’t quite finished its work yet. However, it hadn’t treated Dean as neatly, the surprise of him and his threat had caused it to bruise where it would usually only leave unmarred spans of baffling perfect flesh. Its slow steady constriction was double timed to make short work of this man that had made the mistake of knowing it for what it was.

Sam’s own lungs weren’t something he had thought about either. When he pushed what he had down into Dean’s airway it didn’t make his brother’s chest rise sharply like he wanted it to. Making a small sound he realized what panic now sounded like, he pressed an ear down on the still chest to listen for what could be left of a heart beat. Trembling hands searched the bare skin under the damp shirt for any of his own bullets sent unknowingly into the creature's shell.

The piercing jarring cracks from the rotting husk of the beast startled Sam into looking up at what was left of it. Expecting to see the entire stand of trees all shattered and splintered down on either side of the clearing he found nothing had changed but the object of his search. It looked more now what it actually had been. The shape of yellowed bones lay down amongst the viscous pool of matter that had constituted its formation. The area it had made claim to as something natural and benign now left an open hole up to the moon and its sky above.

Sam breathed down into his brother’s mouth in careful timed intervals, compressions against the clammy skin of his chest in between. The colorful display of the phone lay open on the ground. Help and all its machines were too far away to help in any way no matter how efficiently they’d been summoned.

“Wha- what happened?”

The sound of the woman’s voice scared him so badly he made another one of those high pitched sounds that he wasn’t certain how he managed to create. Half laying over his brother’s body as if obscuring it from her sight would somehow do him some good, Sam worked his mouth at the sight of the tall lady.

“Are- are you okay?” Sam heard himself ask as he watched her lean down. A little unsure on her feet, she fumbled with the handle of the clothing bag that sat on the ground near by.

Her befuddled gaze fell on the gleam of the various pistols that were scattered around in the immediate vicinity.

“W-Wait!” Sam called out as she backed away and got her legs to start working well enough for a decent run.

He had no idea why he didn’t want her out of here. Well, he could think of a few things. But it was nothing he hadn’t already alerted in the form of about three different protective service departments. This dark campus was about to be lit up three ways with a few black & whites, an ambulance and maybe even a fire truck with a ladder on it.

But they wouldn’t be needed.

It wasn’t a huge shock when Dean’s hand moved over his and took it away from his jaw. The monster’s release on its own existence seemed to have an effect on what it had laid hands on to smother slowly in the dark. Sam hadn’t planned on it or expected it but he knew better than to not count his blessings whenever it was they came around.

“Y-You got it.”

Dean’s voice sounded weird. Congested and fuzzy. The way that thing put an end to what lived and breathed was pretty nasty no matter how gentle it appeared in the end. To punctuate the point, Dean started coughing harshly, working up whatever he’d inhaled and spitting it out onto the grass.

Sam put his shoulder into it and burrowed as hard as he could under Dean’s side. Using his good foot he used all the strength he had in his knees to push his brother up to a seat against a slope of rock. Satisfied that Dean was alive and breathing, he hurried through the dim light collecting all the firearms and shoving them back into his backpack. Breathless, he saw exactly what the authorities would find when they arrived shortly; a strange damp spot in the thick mud with a half submerged skeleton. When they eventually figured out its age they would wonder quite a bit more about how the hell it had ended up where it had. But that was all now another man’s mystery.

“We gotta go.” Sam whispered, the edge of his urgency spiking when the hitch and blare of a siren caught less than a block away. “Can you move, should I get the—“

“I’m perfect.” Dean panted in retort.

His brother was already getting up on his feet. Experimentally twisting at his wrenched shoulder and wrist, he was looking backwards at what was left of the bubbling gray heap. Sam found himself pulling hard at the stiff leather sleeve rather than raising his voice again. But Dean wasn’t moving. Frustrated, Sam searched his face for any reason why they shouldn’t be hauling ass as fast as they could to the car.

“So you decided to show.” Dean observed.

“I guess I did.”

Even in the dark, Dean obviously could see the gash on Sam’s face and the mess it had made on the top of his chest. Hobbling in place, Sam wasn’t quite sure what else to say. Dean’s look didn’t miss his tottering either. But it wasn’t anything he was unable to handle. It certainly didn’t hurt so badly that he couldn’t hear the stifled police radio noise stammer into the static of their handhelds. The authorities were getting more than pretty close.

Sam limped a few feet away hoping it would jump start his brother into seeing they had to get moving now. He made another weird sound when he felt the bag’s slack tighten hot and raw across the wound over his collar bone, the backpack hanging under him as his brother got one solid arm up under his knees and around his back.

Leaves and thin branches were whipping at their faces as Dean started traveling fast and far, taking a decent jump down a cement embankment and coming up the other side in less time than it took Sam to wonder which way they should go. He squirmed when his brother paused, the pain hammering in his ankle making him gnaw his lip instead of using it. But his dignity fought his silence and won.

“How far is it? I can walk—“

“You weigh as much as one of them… them…” Dean muttered as he took up the small dirt path that lined what looked like the well ventilated back of the cafeteria. “…them dogs in a bag.”

With a sigh, he awkwardly wrapped his other arm around the front of Dean’s neck. Hoping it would make the chore easier, Sam tried to will his shape to be as small and light as possible. He certainly felt as close to almost nothing as his brother claimed. Pushing his face into Dean’s shoulder, he let out a deep trapped exhale he’d been holding somewhere in the back of his throat ever since his sneakers had hit the street that night. He hadn’t been pressed that closely into that combined strong smell of sweat and leather since he had been a boy and their father had either been away for too long or had a few too many. Sometimes a little of both.

Sam would never admit it to anyone in one million years but he would miss this when it was over and done with. He knew this feeling of shelter would never come back no matter what life came up with down his road. It wasn’t lost to him that to experience it at any kind of level meant he had had to be stripped down to almost no pure physical defense of his own.

It was difficult to know what you had to let go of completely just for one glimpse of somewhere else. The universe’s vigilant system of checks and balances made sure you never got copious amounts from either side of the fence. No matter what side you happened to fall down on.

Dean eased him down and set him up against the car. He had to conduct the search twice before any car keys were found.

His brother was in a little bit worse shape than he was letting on.

Sam touched the burning sticky skin just above his shirt collar. He wondered if this body was capable of hiding just about anything at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s stupid Sam.”

“What is?”

“It’s like… it’s like a fork in your cereal or…or watching the Food Network! It’s pointless and frustrating!”

Sam gingerly crossed his legs out on the bed, mindful of the thickly wrapped ankle that hurt worse than anything he could remember ever doing to himself. That included a pretty long list of shitty things. If he put his weight on it in any way whatsoever the dull throb went razor-sharp and turned so searing it almost made him stop breathing. He knew without reading all about it that the healing curve was on the outside of a week. Not a very long time in the scheme of things. A freaking sunless eternity when you wanted nothing else but to be able to get up and around.

However, it sure was a nice distraction from all that business roiling away between his hips.

Sam turned his attention back to the issue at hand.

“It’s not pointless.” He took a swig out the bottle of root beer that his brother had scored from somewhere other than a two aisled convenience store. “It’s how the creators facilitated their own vision—“

“Aw man.” Dean put his head down into both hands, pulling his knees up so he could rest his elbows up on his most comfortable pair of jeans. “Only you would defend that bullshit under—under claiming creative license!”

Sam wondered if he should start in on the Orange-n-Cream soda next or just go for more ginger beer. There was also that half empty pizza box and a carton of hot wings he hadn’t quite put away yet. This being laid up and locked up against his will thing wasn’t half bad. It was almost better than being 5 years old and having the flu. You got almost anything you wanted and had more television than you knew how to handle. Dean had more or less joined him in the exile, his shoulder bandaged up and his hand in a splint. Besides, sitting around cheering for the rebels while you stuffed your face was never something Dean would refuse without good reason.

The channel broke mid-commercial, a vague sun soaked ad for something that could have been an anti-depressant or some kind of cancer control. The local news stumbled into its place with that mild nervous laughter that always came out of professionals stuck on a live feed gone wrong.

They both listened to the report of a young student who seemed to have escaped her attacker in the middle of the night. Not just any attacker, but authorities were certain it had been the assailant whom had been terrorizing the school for months now. The physical description of the crazed murderer made Sam fight a grin. He would have loved to have gotten into a line up for that one. He could have asked to borrow a couple of their telephone books to make a decent picture.

Just another reason why he should keep low here on the outskirts of town.

Soon this face would run away for him anyway. For a second he wondered if that kid Josh, the guy with the trashed truck, would notice his picture and consider if he had somehow narrowly missed the fate of all the other victims. The faintest idea that a man like that might have gotten some healthy fear settled down into him almost made the entire week just about worth it.

“How come mine was only three days?” Dean speculated out loud as he peeled back the adhesive from his hand for the hundredth time.

Sam looked at him sideways with a little disgust. Everything always went so easy for Dean. It was the story of their collective lives. Day three had come and gone with yesterday. Dean had examined the faded blue line. They had both went back to all the books they’d referred to before. They hadn’t found anything new of note. Nothing to try or say but wait it out like they had the first time.

“Because.” Sam mumbled.

He made himself more comfortable in the half pile of stiff pillows and softer comforters he’d sculpted out of what was available on his bed. Angling the remote around his propped up foot, he found with a certain amount of glee that Episode Two was coming right up no matter how many fans had tragically jumped off bridges in protest as his brother claimed.

The critical but riveting music had started, the curl of stark font beginning its scroll up the star smattered screen.

“Sam, I’d rather watch that fucking show about how old people find out their ancient civil war porcelain nose cleaner is worth 1,000,000 bucks—“

He chucked the channel changer at his brother’s bed with a sigh. It was always easier to cut to the chase and just let him have it. More than happy to be back in complete media control, Dean leaned back and found a half filled soda bottle amongst the empties to take up for whoever had left off.

Sam cleared his throat, thinking about how much longer he would actually hear himself sounding like that and feeling a small piece of regret that he hadn’t expected. However terrible or kind it had been, he was still in the end, just the same old Sam.

“Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he does not wish to sign his work.*”

Dean was doing less than not paying attention. His brother was flipping channels, scrolling down his cell phone and trying to get a pen under the scratchy material over his healing shoulder all at the same time. Looking down at the beige dressing that covered up half his own small chest, the idea of a jaunty signature there made Sam smile a little bit more than it should. Grabbing the half unwrapped chunk of chocolate that was sitting amongst the pile of other edible debris, he shoved it in his mouth. Steadily feeding himself junk for the past 24 hours, he tried to ignore that half of what he ate was ending up in smaller pieces on his shirt. Being a terrible abject mess had never really been quite this satisfying.

So he had a few more days of hourly showers and some unfathomable desire for the suddenly intoxicating aroma of drier sheets? Weirder shit had happened. It seemed nothing ever got shaken out of a deity’s bottle of damnation quite the same time every try anyway.

Sam sighed shortly when he made the mistake of looking at the chained door with the motel chair wedged under it.

Some were just luckier than others.

 

The end

 

* Anatole France


End file.
